Elbe Germanic

Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer in his book Nordgermanen und Alemanen to describe the West Germanic dialects ancestral to Lombardic, Alemannic, and Bavarian. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages its supposed descendants strongly influenced the neighboring West Central German dialects and, later, Standard German. Most scholars accept the existence of an Elbe Germanic archaeological group, but the existence of a corresponding linguistic group remains controversial.